October’s Ministry Theme is Cultivating Compassion

Join us in-person and online on Sundays at 10:30 am. All are welcome! We as Unitarian Universalists in Santa Monica look forward to being with you.

Masks are optional, but always acceptable and welcome. If you or someone in your household is not feeling well or has tested positive for COVID, please stay home; you can still join us via our Facebook or YouTube live-stream worship. 

Parking at the UCLA parking structure at 1311 16th St. is available to people attending Sunday services. The entrance is from 16th St. between Santa Monica Blvd. and Arizona Ave., on the SE corner of Arizona and 16th; ask the attendant for a free UUSM parking permit to place on your dashboard. For those with a handicap parking tag, several spaces are also available onsite, via the alley west of 18th St., as well as in the UCLA structure.

Worship Online: We livestream our service from the sanctuary. Join us by clicking the WATCH NOW button above where the video is live every week beginning at 10:20 am, or watch on YouTube or Facebook. You don’t need to have a YouTube or Facebook account, or be logged in, to watch the service. You do have to be logged in to comment and chat with other members of the congregation. 

Explore past services on our Sermons page, available 24/7. Tune in anytime to catch up and worship with your community. We encourage you to light a chalice or candle at home, meditate, and sing along. 

October Generous Congregation Recipient:  Westside Coalition

Our practice here at UUSM is to dedicate half of our non-pledge Sunday offerings to support the life of our church and the other 50% to organizations doing work in the world that advances our Unitarian Universalist principles. This month we’ll share our Sunday Offering with the Westside Coalition, an alliance of 81 organizations, public agencies, and faith communities committed to working collaboratively on issues of housing, hunger, and health through service coordination, public education, and advocacy. 

Although individual agencies have the ability to provide separate services for people in need, the efforts of the Westside Coalition help coordinate all services on the Westside in order to provide a true continuum of service care for the community. Members work together to provide services that include initial intake and service referrals; showers, food, and clothing; on-going case management; emergency, transitional, and permanent housing; medical care; mental health treatment; HIV medical and social services; job training and placement; and substance abuse treatment. The coalition has been instrumental in advocating for low income and homeless people at the local, state, and national levels.

Thank you for your generous support of our beloved community and the Westside Coalition. To give $10 right now, text “$10 GCC” (or another amount) to 844-982-0209. (One-time-only credit card registration required.) Or visit uusm.org/donate.

October 2025 Theme: Cultivating Compassion

Our theme this month invites us to consider our world, our community, and our lives in the light of the practice of Cultivating Compassion. In difficult moments, we can pause our work and choose to be present with someone. It takes time and practice to acknowledge the pain someone else feels, whether it is physical, mental, or emotional. This month let us notice opportunities to offer a listening heart and our compassion.

We Lay Down Our Burdens
We arrive in this place where all we have to do is breathe.
We don’t have to impress or convince or win over…
We don’t have to be anything but who we are….
May we be filled instead with presence.
May we feel held in the comfort of our community.
May we discover new compassion for ourselves and others.
May we meet this moment with gentleness, ease… ~ Kate Steinberg,

The wisdom to know…
We light this chalice as we learn to hold both tenderness and strength. May this flame illuminate the wisdom to know when compassion calls us to offer comfort and when it demands courageous action. ~ Rev. Michelle Collins

Come, sing a song with me. Come, sing a song with me.
Come, sing a song with me, that I might know your mind.
And I’ll bring you hope, when hope is hard to find.
And I’ll bring a song of love, and a rose in the wintertime. ~Carolyn McDade, Hymn #346 in Singing the Living Tradition, more of Carolyn’s music

Gentleness in Living:
Who of us can look inside another and know what is there
Of hope and hurt, or promise and pain?…
Our lives are like fragile eggs.
They crack and the substance escapes.
Handle with care!
Handle with exceedingly tender care… ~ Rev. Richard S. Gilbert, full piece

Even This Is Enough (On self-compassion)
The world won’t stop spinning on her axis if you don’t rise to all occasions today.
Love won’t cease to flow in your direction…
Rest, if you must, then, like the swimmer lying on her back who floats… ~ Rev. Vanessa Southern, full piece

Rekindled…
At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. ~ Albert Schweitzer, Reading #447 in Singing the Living Tradition

UU History
Michael Servetus was a Spaniard in the 16^th Century who criticized the doctrine of the trinity and opposed infant baptism. Miguel Serveto grew up in Villanueva, Aragon, and entered the service of a scholarly Franciscan monk. While studying law at the University of Toulouse in France, he read the Bible, which the invention of the printing press had made newly and dangerously available. He was surprised to find the trinity nowhere explicitly mentioned, much less defined, in the sacred text. His rejection of the doctrine of original sin influenced those who later founded unitarian churches in Poland and Transylvania. Servetus, Michael (2000) – Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography

Our service in the world continues.